He was born in born at Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, and practised as a solicitor at Norwich from 1812 to 1815. In 1816 he took orders, and was made one of the secretaries of the Church Missionary Society. On receiving the living of Watton, Hertfordshire, in 1830, he resigned his secretaryship, but continued to lecture and preach, both for the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Conversion of the Jews. He was instrumental in the merger of the Anglican Central Committee and the Continental society in 1840 to form the Foreign Aid Society which supported evangelical Protestant ministry on the continent of Europe.

He was active in promoting the Evangelical Alliance of 1845, strongly opposed the Tractarian Movement, and was one of the founders of the Irish Church Missions, and Parker, Societies.

Works

His works include A Scripture Help (London, 1816), which has been translated into many European languages, and Christian Psalmody (London, 1833), a collection of over 700 hymns, which forms the basis of the Hymnal Companion (London, 1870), compiled by his son, Edward Henry Bickersteth, bishop of Exeter (1885–1890).

Family

He was brother of Henry, Baron Langdale, Master of the Rolls (1836–1851), and uncle of Robert Bickersteth, bishop of Ripon (1857–1884). Edward Bickersteth (Dean of Lichfield), was his nephew, and Edward Bickersteth, bishop of South Tokyo, his grandson.